Sunday, September 26, 2010

Students for a Democratic Society (SDS) stand in solidarity with their brothers and sisters across the country in the face of FBI repression of progressive causes. SDSers, along with members of the Palestine Solidarity Group, the Twin-Cities Anti-War Committee, the Colombia Action Network, the Freedom Road Socialist Organization, and the National Committee to Free Ricardo Palmera had their homes searched and documents and electronic devices seized.

“The government hopes to use a grand jury to frame up activists. The goal of these raids is to harass and try to intimidate the movement against U.S. wars and occupations, and those who oppose U.S. support for repressive regimes,” said Colombia solidarity activist Tom Burke, one of those handed a subpoena by the FBI. “They are designed to suppress dissent and free speech, to divide the peace movement, and to pave the way for more U.S. military intervention in the Middle East and Latin America.”

Grace Kelley, an SDSer from the University of Minnesota, said “SDS at the U of M condemns the terror tactics used by the FBI to silence activists who organize against wars and for peace here in Minneapolis as well as across the nation. Tracy Molm from SDS at U of M was one of the activists whose house was raided. SDSers across the country need to stand up and condemn these raids and say that we will not be scared into silence, that we will continue to stand up and fight for what’s right”.

Several activists in Minnesota and Chicago have had papers, CDs, and cell phones stolen among other items; as well as being issued subpoenas to appear before a federal grand jury. The FBI are apparently looking for evidence linking activists to “material support of terrorism” specifically liberation struggles in Colombia and Palestine. In addition to SDSers being harassed in Minneapolis, two SDSers in Milwaukee were also contacted by the FBI about their anti-war activism.

The activists involved have done nothing wrong and are refusing to be pulled into conversations with the FBI about their political views or organizing against war and occupation. No arrests have been made – make no mistake, this is a fishing expedition by the FBI.

We urge all progressive activists to show solidarity with those individuals targeted by the U.S. Government. Activists have the right not to speak with the FBI and are encouraged to politely refuse – just say “No”.

Show your support! Organize solidarity actions in your city demanding that the FBI halt all searches and seizures against progressive activists who have done nothing wrong. Contact your local media and let them know that we will not tolerate this kind of harassment from the government. And be aware – if the FBI knocks, you do not have to give out any information or answer any questions.

The ideological foundations of U.S. foreign policy have neo-Trotskyite foundations. Hatred of the USSR since the time of Stalin was the primary motivation for Trotskyists to the point where a significant faction considered the USSR and Stalinism rather than America and capitalism as the major obstacles to world socialism. This faction was co-opted into the Cold War and has provided the ideological impetus for U.S. foreign policy ever since.

Abstract

Leon Trotsky

America has been the center of ‘world revolution’ since the time of Woodrow Wilson’s Fourteen Points to shape the post-war world in a single image of liberal-democracy. The policy has been one of internationalism, and the Bush description of it as a ‘new world order’ in launching the war on Iraq is the latest name. While conservatives bothered much about the USSR and Red China, the heart of ‘world revolution’ lay in Washington. Because the policies of the USA and the USSR often coincided on the world stage, in particular promoting decolonization in order to fill the void with their own versions of neo-colonialism, such policies have often been mistaken for ‘Soviet communism.’ While the ‘Soviet threat’ lies in ashes, U.S. hegemony proceeds apace, destroying reticent nations with bombs where debt and foreign aid does not work. The ideological origins of American globalist foreign policy received impetus and ideological direction from sources arising from the Trotsky-Stalin split. The Moscow Trials continue to reverberate as a major historical event throughout the world. Whatever might be said about the judicial processes of the trials, the charge at the time that Trotskyists were agents of foreign capital became reality within a few years of the trial, as Trotskyist hatred of the USSR became all-consuming. This essay examines the manner by which Trotskyism metamorphosed into a primary ingredient of US foreign policy doctrine.

“Global Democratic Revolution”

In 2003 President George W Bush embraced the world revolutionary mission of the USA, stating to the National Endowment for Democracy that the war in Iraq is the latest front in the “global democratic revolution” led by the United States. “The revolution under former president Ronald Reagan freed the people of Soviet-dominated Europe,” he declared, “and is destined now to liberate the Middle East as well.”[1]

The origins of this US “global democratic revolution” are to be found in an unlikely and far-away source: the Trotsky-Stalin split and the Moscow Trials of 1936-1938. Such was the hatred of the Trotskyists and certain allied socialists towards the USSR from Stalin onward, that this “Opposition”, came to regard the USSR as the primary bulwark against world socialism and saw in the USA the only means of resisting Soviet world power, to the extent that these Leftists were eventually found supporting America in Korea and Vietnam, and ultimately present American foreign policy throughout the world, including the war against Iraq

We denounce the Federal Bureau of Investigation harassment of anti-war and solidarity activists in several states across the country. The FBI began turning over six houses in Chicago and Minneapolis this morning, Friday, September 24, 2010, at 8:00 am central time. The FBI handed subpoenas to testify before a federal grand jury to about a dozen activists in Illinois, Minnesota, and Michigan. They also attempted to intimidate activists in California and North Carolina.

"The government hopes to use a grand jury to frame up activists. The goal of these raids is to harass and try to intimidate the movement against U.S. wars and occupations, and those who oppose U.S. support for repressive regimes," said Colombia solidarity activist Tom Burke, one of those handed a subpoena by the FBI. "They are designed to suppress dissent and free speech, to divide the peace movement, and to pave the way for more U.S. military intervention in the Middle East and Latin America."

This suppression of democratic rights is aimed towards those who dedicate much of their time and energy to supporting the struggles of the Palestinian and Colombian peoples against U.S. funded occupation and war. The activists are involved with well-known anti-war groups including many of the leaders of the huge protest against the Republican National Convention in St. Paul, MN in September 2008. The FBI agents emphasized that the grand jury was going to investigate the activists for possible terrorism charges. This is a U.S. government attempt to silence those who support resistance to oppression in the Middle East and Latin America.

The activists involved have done nothing wrong and are refusing to be pulled into conversations with the FBI about their political views or organizing against war and occupation. The activists are involved with many groups, including: the Palestine Solidarity Group, Students for a Democratic Society, the Twin-Cities Anti-War Committee, the Colombia Action Network, the Freedom Road Socialist Organization, and the National Committee to Free Ricardo Palmera (a Colombian Political Prisoner).

Steff Yorek, a long-time antiwar activist and one of the activists whose homes was searched, called the raids “An outrageous fishing expedition.”

We urge all progressive activists to show solidarity with those individuals targeted by the U.S. Government. Activists have the right not to speak with the FBI and are encouraged to politely refuse, just say “No”.

Please contact info@colombiasolidarity.org This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it or info@fightbacknews.org This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it if you would like to provide support to the targeted activists

There appears to be no end to the political uncertainty in Nepal as R C Poudyal of Nepali Congress failed to get majority support in Parliament in the Prime Ministerial election for the eighth time in a row on Sunday even after Maoist chairman Prachanda withdrew from the race.

Ahead of the voting in the 601-member Constituent Assembly, the House officially approved the withdrawal of Prachanda’s candidacy, leaving Nepali Congress (NC) candidate Poudyal alone in the fray.

65-year-old Poudyal received 116 votes in his favour, 184 votes short of a simple majority. Seventy-one lawmakers stayed neutral, while the remaining members did not participate in the voting process, the nepalnews online said.

Unified CPN (Maoist) and CPN-UML lawmakers did not participate in the voting process. Till the seventh round of elections, CPN-UML had participated in the voting process and stayed neutral, the report said.

The next round of voting will be on September 30.

Following his failure to get majority support in Parliament seven times in a row, the Maoist chief on September 17 withdrew from the prime ministerial election after a deal with the CPN-UML in bid to facilitate the formation of a national consensus government.

Nearly three months after the 22-party coalition led by Prime Minister Madhav Kumar Nepal collapsed, eight rounds of poll have failed to elect a new leader.

Karen Wald, an activist and anti-imperialist journalist who has lived in Cuba since 1973, conducted this interview as a reporter for the Liberation News Service.

George Jackson

George Jackson was born in Chicago, Illinois in 1941. Throughout his youth in Chicago's projects and then urban Los Angeles, Jackson had frequent conflicts with the police. He was first imprisoned at age sixteen in a California Youth Authority Institution, for an attempted burglary and possession of a stolen motorcycle (which he claimed to have purchased). In 1958, a few months after his parole, Jackson and several friends were arrested for robberies to which he pled guilty. After his release on September 18, 1960, Jackson allegedly drove the getaway car after his friend robbed a gas station of seventy-one dollars. He agreed to confess in return for a light sentence; the judge gave him one-to-life, which became life imprisonment. Initially sent to Soledad Prison, he was transferred at least four times during his incarceration.

Introduced to radical philosophy by W. L. Nolen, a major figure in the prison radical movement, Jackson, during his frequent solitary confinement, read Karl Marx, V. I. Lenin, Leon Trotsky, Friedrich Engels, Mao Tse-tung (Zedong) and other political theorists. In 1968, Jackson and other prisoners founded the Black Guerilla Family, a revolutionary organization (that authorities described as a "gang") that proclaimed black prisoners' rights to self-defense. Jackson would also serve as a Field Marshall for the Black Panther Party. In January of 1969, Jackson and Nolen were transferred to Soledad prison, a notoriously racist prison. On January 13, 1970, guards reopened Soledad's O Wing exercise yard, closed because of racial tension, and released a racially mixed group of prisoners, fully aware of potential violence.

ii
The fight that began immediately ended by guard Opie Miller, a sharpshooter who fired four shots, killing Nolen and three other black inmates. Following the publicizing of a Monterey County grand jury judge's ruling that the deaths were justifiable homicide, guard John V. Mills was thrown to his death from the third tier of Y wing-George Jackson's cellblock. One month later, with no physical evidence, Jackson, Fleeta Drumgo, and John Cluchette were indicted for killing Mills. Attorney Fay Stender subsequently formed the Soledad Brothers Defense Committee, which eventually was headed by Angela Y. Davis.

iii
Stender also arranged for the publication of the influential Soledad Brother: The Prison Letters of George Jackson. On August 7,1970 Jackson's seventeen-year-old brother, Jonathan, entered the Marin County Courthouse-with weapons registered in the name of Angela Davis-in an attempt to secure the release of his brother and the other Soledad Brothers. Law enforcement officers fired upon the parked van holding Jackson, the prisoners, and their hostages, killing Judge Harrold Haley, prisoners William Christmas, James McClain, and Jonathan Jackson, and wounding prisoner Ruchell Maggee and several hostages. During an escape attempt on August 21, 1971, guards shot George Jackson in the back. The exact events still remain unclear. Stephen Bingham, Jackson's attorney who allegedly brought Jackson a gun on the day he was killed, eventually emerged from underground to stand trial and was acquitted in 1986.

References:
Durden-Smith, Jo. Who Killed George Jackson? New York: Knopf, 1976.
Jackson, George. "A Talk with George Jackson." Interview with Jessica Mitford. New York Times (13 June 1971): 30.

---. "Toward the United Front." In If They Come in the Morning: Voices of Resistance, edited by Angela Y. Davis and Bettina Aptheker. San Francisco: National United Committee to Free Angela Davis, 1971.

---. "Letters to Jonathan Jackson." In If They Come in the Morning: Voices of Resistance, edited by Angela Y. Davis and Bettina Aptheker. San Francisco: National United Committee to Free Angela Davis, 1971.

Karen Wald: George, could you comment on your conception of revolution?

George Jackson: The principal contradiction between the oppressor and oppressed can be reduced to the fact that the only way the oppressor can maintain his position is by fostering, nurturing, building, contempt for the oppressed. That thing gets out of hand after a while. It leads to excesses that we see and the excesses are growing within the totalitarian state here.

The excesses breed resistance; resistance is growing. The thing grows in a spiral. It can only end one way. The excesses lead to resistance, resistance leads to brutality, the brutality leads to more resistance, and finally the whole question will be resolved with either the uneconomic destruction of the oppressed, or the end of oppression.

These are the workings of revolution. It grows in spirals, confrontations, and I mean on all levels. The institutions of society have buttressed the establishment, so I mean all levels have to be assaulted.

Wald: How does the prison liberation movement fit into this? Is its importance over-exaggerated or contrived?

This is a piece published in Nepal’s Maoist press against “negotiating to share political power within the old state.” In other words, it should be read as a sharp polemic over contested issues facing Nepal’s revolution and its Maoist leading core.This story with pictures first published on Kasama

Two Decades After Mandela’s Release:

20 Years of Freedom in South Africa?

The world watched elatedly 20 years ago as Nelson Mandela was finally freed from 27 years in South African jails in February 1990, so hated was the apartheid regime and all the injustice it stood for. Mandela, as one of the world’s longest-held political prisoners has become a sort of living legend.

Apartheid’s jails regorged with thousands of political prisoners from the decades of struggle against apartheid representing different organizations and different perspectives. Many fighters, leaders and soldiers died in detainment or were hanged in police stations, thrown out of upper-story windows and never saw a wigged white apartheid judge go through the motions of a trial. Treason was a common charge. And the masses of South African people had made enormous and heroic sacrifices during the struggle and periods of upsurge over the previous decades. Although Mandela’s enemies secretly began negotiations with him in 1988, it was never a secret that their releasing political leaders and unbanning opposition groups in 1990 was a calculated step in the dismantling of apartheid and reorganisation of political rule in South Africa.

At the end of the 1980′s the apartheid system of enforced racial segregation and oppression in which the black majority (including people of Indian and mixed race origin) was legally forbidden the most elementary rights was rotting at the seams under the combined weight of major social, political and economic crisis.

It was a revolutionary situation, which the white settler regime fully realized as it could no longer contain the political upsurge that had been shaking the country in waves since 1976 and reached a peak in the mid-1980′s. Despite police invasion of the townships where most blacks lived, these became bases to stage different forms of struggle. Youth, students and workers, including foreign migrant workers, organized mass boycotts, stay-aways (from school, businesses and work}, strikes, fighting with the police and then funeral marches after people were gunned down. In the rural areas too, where most Africans were forced to live in phony ethnic-based reserves, people rioted against the despised bantustan authorities and their vigilante squads, fought for better land and resisted force removals as part of apartheid’s territorial consolidation.

While vast sections of blacks were mobilized in one form or another to fight white rule, many thousands were also actively involved in organizations fighting for national liberation and revolution, and passionately debating the future.

Deep poverty and class inequality still characterizes capitalist South Africa

President P.W. Botha’s counter-revolutionary strategy, combining some reforms and modest social welfare with divide and conquer tactics among the anti-apartheid forces, utterly failed to stabilise the situation. The situation was so out of control by 1986 that the apartheid government declared emergency rule with curfews and a doubled police force that occupied the exploding townships. In the late 1980′s four to five thousand people were killed. Every funeral was turned into another round of struggle. The intensity of the upsurge led the regime to ban 31 black political organizations in 1988, provoking the creation of numerous new local committees to carry on. The struggle remained at a high level into 1990.

The apartheid rulers, advised by the West, sought Nelson Mandela’s help to end the crisis and smother the escalating revolutionary movement by lending credibility to a negotiated settlement with anti-apartheid organizations. They were able to buy precious time while they reorganized South Africa’s political rule in ways that did not fundamentally change the socio-economic system it served and the country’s role as powerhouse of Africa and guardian of imperialist interests in the region.

As it was designed to, the negotiated compromise in South Africa had a terrible effect, helping to snuff out the revolutionary aspirations of the millions of people who, at the cost of great sacrifice including their lives, threatened to pull down the regime in order to end white rule and all the vicious oppression and suffering it represented. This immense opportunity and revolutionary potential was channeled into voting for one of the 19 candidates with Mandela representing the ANC (African National Congress) that had been groomed to share state power with the slightly reformed National Party – the same reactionary party that had presided over formal apartheid for nearly 50 years. It was called a Government of National Unity. Having the right to vote for the first time in history, naturally the majority of Black people turned out in record numbers to elect the popular former political prison Nelson Mandela with hopes that the ANC would be able to deliver on its promises of liberation, returning the land to the blacks, and doing away with the inequalities and bitter subjugation they had endured for so long.

How did a so-called national liberation organization led by Mandela succeed in drowning this revolutionary process? How did it become such a willing tool of the ruling classes?

Sunday, September 19, 2010

With an increasing death toll in protests in Kashmir, Amnesty International calls on the Indian authorities to take urgent steps to ensure respect for the right to life and to investigate past killings of demonstrators by police.

With two more protestors shot dead today, Amnesty International urges the Indian government to immediately instruct the security forces not to use firearms against demonstrators, Security forces should use the minimum force necessary to defend themselves or others against an imminent threat of death or serious injury. They should not employ intentional lethal use of firearms except where such use is strictly unavoidable in order to protect life.

Ninety-six people have been killed since June when protests broke out in Jammu and Kashmir after the killings of three young men, reportedly by the security forces, in March. The vast majority of these killings have been at the hands of police and paramilitary forces.

An inquiry ordered by the authorities into 11 of the deaths by shooting in July has failed to make headway. Amnesty International renews its call to the government to initiate an independent, impartial and thorough investigation into all the killings. Members of the security forces responsible for excessive use of force in demonstrations should be brought to justice.

In the last week alone, at least 23 people were killed and 80 others injured in shootings by the state police and the Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF) paramilitary personnel. Protestors defied curfew regulations, held demonstrations and often clashed with the security personnel.

Protests in several places turned violent as demonstrators hurled stones at the security forces in the last week. Reports about threats to burn the Quran in the United States increased tensions. Demonstrators attacked two Christian schools and a hospital, burning one of the schools.

At the same time human rights activists in Srinagar told Amnesty International that on a number of occasions the security forces shot protestors who were throwing stones at them

Friday, September 17, 2010

India is a corporate, Hindu state: Arundhati Roy
Posted by Rajeesh on on Indian Vanguard on September 15, 2010

Hello and welcome to Devil’s Advocate. At the end of a week when the Maoists have been on the front pages practically every day, we present a completely different perspective to that of the government’s. My guest today is an author, essayist and Booker Prize winner, Arundhati Roy.

Karan Thapar: I want to talk to you about how you view the Maoists and how you think the government should respond, but first, how do you view the recent hostage taking in Bihar where four policemen were kidnapped and kept kidnapped for eight days, and one of them – Lukas Tete – murdered?

Arundhati Roy: I don’t think there is anything revolutionary about killing a person that is in custody. I have made a statement where I said it was as bad as the police killing Azad, as they did, in a fake encounter in Andhra. But, I actually shy away from this atrocity-based analysis that’s coming out of our TV screens these days because a part of it is meant for you to lose the big picture about what is this war about, who wants the war? Who needs the war?

Karan Thapar: I want very much to talk about the big picture. But, before I come to that, let me point out something else. In the last one year, the Maoists have beheaded Francis Induwar and Sanjoy Ghosh; they have killed Lokus Tete. They have kidnapped other policemen. There have been devastating attacks in Dantewada, there has been the sabotage of the Gyaneshwari Express. In your eyes, does it amount to legitimate strategy or tactics, or does it detract from the Maoist cause?

Arundhati Roy: You can’t bundle them all together. For example the train accident. I don’t think anybody knows who did it yet.

Wednesday, September 15, 2010

The Indian authorities should order a prompt, impartial and independent investigation into reports of torture and ill-treatment, including rape and other sexual violence, against adivasis (indigenous people) illegally detained in Chhattisgarh, Amnesty International said today.

Adivasis from Pachangi and Aloor villages in Kanker district told Amnesty International that paramilitary Border Security Force (BSF) personnel and the Chhattisgarh state police rounded up 40 adivasi men from their villages on 5 and 6 September, stripped them and beat them with sticks. Five men – Narsingh Kumra, Sukram Netam, Premsingh Potayi, Raju Ram and Bidde Potayi were reportedly raped with sticks and are still being treated at the Kanker government hospital.

These violations followed the 29 August ambush of a BSF-police patrol by members of the Communist Party of India (Maoist) in which three BSF personnel and two policemen were killed.

Seventeen people from the two villages were also detained– blindfolded, split into batches and taken to the BSF camp at Durgkondal in closed trucks. Amnesty International has been informed that at least two of those detained - Dhansu Khemra and Sarita Tulavi – were 16 year old girls while another four were women and girls between 16 and 20.

During their detention, security forces beat the detainees in an attempt to force them to confess that they were Maoists involved in the 29 August ambush. The interrogators gave electric shocks to at least 10 detainees and sexually assaulted two female detainees.

Villagers said that on the morning of 7 September the Kanker police released one female detainee Sunita, as she was suffering from malaria, and her father, Punnim Tulavi, a school-teacher, but then arrested two more men.

The five remaining female detainees were taken to a local court along with two of the adivasi men on 8 September, while the remaining ten male detainees were taken to court on 10 September. All of the adivasis were charged with involvement in the 29 August ambush by the banned Maoist armed group and are presently in Kanker and Jagdalpur prisons, after being denied bail.

Indian law requires that arrested persons be produced before a court within 24 hours of the arrest. In an attempt to circumvent this requirement, the police claimed the two groups of detainees were arrested only one day before their respective appearances in court.

Torture and other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment, including sexual violence, are prohibited in all circumstances, including war or other emergency under international law, and in particular the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights and the Geneva Conventions. India is also a signatory to the United Nations’ Convention Against Torture and the Indian Parliament is currently engaged in passing a new law against torture in accordance with the provisions of the Convention before its ratification.

Amnesty International calls upon the Indian authorities to:

· ensure a prompt, impartial, independent and effective investigation into the allegations of torture and other ill-treatment, including sexual assault, and the illegal detention of adivasis. Those suspected of involvement in the violations, including persons bearing command responsibility, should immediately be suspended from positions where they may repeat such offences, and brought to justice;

· award the victims of torture and other ill-treatment full reparations. In particular, immediately ensure that all victims of torture and other ill-treatment, including sexual violence, are provided with proper medical care, both physical and psychological, by professionals trained and sensitised to treat such victims; and

· ensure that, if – as a measure of last resort – those under the age of 18 are kept in prison, they are held separately from adults and otherwise treated in accordance with India’s juvenile justice legislation and the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child, to which India is a state party.

Over the last five years, Chhattisgarh has witnessed an escalation of violence between the banned Maoists who claim to be fighting on behalf of the adivasis and India’s paramilitary forces. At least 600 people have been killed and some 30,000 adivasis continue to be displaced from their homes in the state

UCPN (Maoist) vice chairman Mohan Baidya on Monday revealed that his party has begun preparation to capture state power through people's revolt. He said that the party has been left with no option but to wage the revolt as efforts are on to bar the Maoists from going into power.

Speaking at an interaction programme held at the Reporters' Club today afternoon, he said the Maoists are victims of conspiracy to bar them from forming a legitimate government.

"So, our ultimate aim is to capture state power sooner or later by waging fresh people's revolt," Baidya said.

He informed that his party has already started making preparation for the people's revolt, adding that the month long protest programmes announced by a meeting of the Central Committee on Sunday is a prelude to such a revolt.

In his latest political dossier presented at the ongoing Central Committee meeting of the party held on Saturday, Baidya, who is considered a party hawk and leads a hard-line faction inside the party, has proposed that the party should stop cooperating with the "parliamentary parties" and make preparations to wage fresh people's revolt..

Democracy and Class Struggle publishes this article of Arundhati Roy not because we agree with all of it but because it poses some challenges to the movement in India and Arundhati Roy's support for the struggle in India gives her the right to question the movement and it's direction.

(Source : Dawn)

The law locks up the hapless felonwho steals the goose from off the common,but lets the greater felon loosewho steals the common from the goose.

- Anonymous, England, 1821

In the early morning hours of the 2nd of July 2010, in the remote forests of Adilabad, the Andhra Pradesh State Police fired a bullet into the chest of a man called Cherukuri Rajkumar, known to his comrades as Azad. Azad was a member of the Polit Bureau of the banned Communist Party of India (Maoist), and had been nominated by his party as its chief negotiator for the proposed peace talks with the Government of India. Why did the police fire at point-blank range and leave those telltale burn marks, when they could so easily have covered their tracks? Was it a mistake or was it a message?

They killed a second person that morning—Hem Chandra Pandey, a young journalist who was traveling with Azad when he was apprehended. Why did they kill him? Was it to make sure no eyewitness remained alive to tell the tale? Or was it just whimsy?

In the course of a war, if, in the preliminary stages of a peace negotiation, one side executes the envoy of the other side, it’s reasonable to assume that the side that did the killing does not want peace. It looks very much as though Azad was killed because someone decided that the stakes were too high to allow him to remain alive. That decision could turn out to be a serious error of judgment. Not just because of who he was, but because of the political climate in India today.

The Trickledown Revolution

Days after I said goodbye to the comrades and emerged from the Dandakaranya forest, I found myself charting a weary but familiar course to Jantar Mantar, on Parliament Street in New Delhi. Jantar Mantar is an old observatory built by Maharaja Sawai Jai Singh II of Jaipur in 1710. In those days it was a scientific marvel, used to tell the time, predict the weather and study the planets. Today it’s a not-so-hot tourist attraction that doubles up as Delhi’s little showroom for democracy.

For some years now, protests—unless they’re patronized by political parties or religious organizations—have been banned in Delhi. The Boat Club on Rajpath, which has in the past seen huge, historic rallies that sometimes lasted for days, is out of bounds for political activity now, and is only available for picnics, balloon-sellers and boat-rides. As for India Gate, candlelight vigils and boutique protests for middle-class causes —such as “Justice for Jessica”, the model who was killed in a Delhi bar by a thug with political connections—are allowed, but nothing more. Section 144, an old nineteenth-century law that bans the gathering of more than five people—who have “a common object which is unlawful”—in a public place, has been clamped on the city. The law was passed by the British in 1861 to prevent a repeat of the 1857 Mutiny. It was meant to be an emergency measure, but has become a permanent fixture in many parts of India. Perhaps it was in gratitude for laws like these, that our Prime Minister, while accepting an honorary degree from Oxford, thanked the British for bequeathing us such a rich legacy: “Our judiciary, our legal system, our bureaucracy and our police are all great institutions, derived from British-Indian administration and they have served the country well.”

Jantar Mantar is the only place in Delhi where Section 144 applies but is not enforced. People from all over the country, fed up with being ignored by the political establishment and the media, converged there, desperately hoping for a hearing. Some take long train journeys. Some, like the victims of the Bhopal Gas leak, have walked for weeks, all the way to Delhi. Though they had to fight each other for the best spot on the burning (or freezing) pavement, until recently protestors were allowed to camp in Jantar Mantar for as long as they liked––weeks, months, even years. Under the malevolent gaze of the police and the Special Branch, they would put up their faded shamianas and banners. From here they declared their faith in democracy by issuing their memorandums, announcing their protest plans and staging their indefinite hunger strikes. From here they tried (but never succeeded) to march on Parliament. From here they hoped.

Of late though, Democracy’s timings have been changed. It’s strictly office hours now, nine to five. No overtime. No sleep-overs. No matter from how far people have come, no matter if they have no shelter in the city—if they don’t leave by 6pm, they are forcibly dispersed, by the police if necessary, with batons and water canons if things get out of hand. The new timings were ostensibly instituted to make sure that the 2010 Commonwealth Games that New Delhi is hosting go smoothly. But nobody’s expecting the old timings back any time soon. Maybe it’s in the fitness of things that what’s left of our democracy should be traded in for an event that was created to celebrate the British Empire. Perhaps it’s only right that 400,000 people should have had their homes demolished and been driven out of the city overnight. Or that hundreds of thousands of roadside vendors should have had their livelihoods snatched away by order of the Supreme Court so city malls could take over their share of business. And that tens of thousands of beggars should have been shipped out of the city while more than a hundred thousand galley slaves were shipped in to build the flyovers, metro tunnels, Olympic-size swimming pools, warm-up stadiums and luxury housing for athletes. The Old Empire may not exist. But obviously our tradition of servility has become too profitable an enterprise to dismantle.

I was at Jantar Mantar because a thousand pavement dwellers from cities all over the country had come to demand a few fundamental rights: the right to shelter, to food (ration cards), to life (protection from police brutality, and criminal extortion by municipal officers).

It was early spring, the sun was sharp, but still civilized. This is a terrible thing to have to say, but it’s true—you could smell the protest from a fair distance: It was the accumulated odor of a thousand human bodies that had been dehumanized, denied the basic necessities for human (or even animal) health and hygiene for years, if not a whole lifetime. Bodies that had been marinated in the refuse of our big cities, bodies that had no shelter from the harsh weather, no access to clean water, clean air, sanitation or medical care. No part of this great country, none of the supposedly progressive schemes, no single urban institution has been designed to accommodate them. Not the Jawaharlal Nehru National Urban Renewal Mission, not any other slum development, employment guarantee or welfare scheme. Not even the sewage system—they shit on top of it. They are shadow people, who live in the cracks that run between schemes and institutions. They sleep on the streets, eat on the streets, make love on the streets, give birth on the streets, are raped on the streets, cut their vegetables, wash their clothes, raise their children, live and die on the streets.

If the motion picture were an art form that involved the olfactory senses—in other words if cinema smelled—then films like Slumdog Millionaire would not win Oscars. The stench of that kind of poverty wouldn’t blend with the aroma of warm popcorn.

To most readers in this continent, starved of authentic information by the imperialist news agencies, the name of George Jackson is either unfamiliar or just a name. The powers that be in the United States put forward the official version that George Jackson was a dangerous criminal kept in maximum security in Americas toughest jails and still capable of killing a guard at Soledad Prison. They say that he himself was killed attempting escape this year in August. Official versions given by the United States of everything from the Bay of Pigs in Cuba to the Bay of Tonkin in Vietnam have the common characteristic of standing truth on its head. George Jackson was jailed ostensibly for stealing 70 dollars. He was given a sentence of one year to life because he was black, and he was kept incarcerated for years under the most dehumanizing conditions because he discovered that blackness need not be a badge of servility but rather could be a banner for uncompromising revolutionary struggle. He was murdered because he was doing too much to pass this attitude on to fellow prisoners. George Jackson was political prisoner and a black freedom fighter. He died at the hands of the enemy.

Once it is made known that George Jackson was a black revolutionary in the white mans jails, at least one point is established, since we are familiar with the fact that a significant proportion of African nationalist leaders graduated from colonialist prisons, and right now the jails of South Africa hold captive some of the best of our brothers in that part of the continent. Furthermore, there is some considerable awareness that ever since the days of slavery the U.S.A. is nothing but a vast prison as far as African descendants are concerned. Within this prison, black life is cheap, so it should be no surprise that George Jackson was murdered by the San Quentin prison authorities who are responsible to Americas chief prison warder, Richard Nixon. What remains is to go beyond the generalities and to understand the most significant elements attaching to George Jacksons life and death.

When he was killed in August this year, George Jackson was twenty nine years of age and had spent the last fifteen [correction: 11 years] behind bars—seven of these in special isolation. As he himself put it, he was from the lumpen. He was not part of the regular producer force of workers and peasants. Being cut off from the system of production, lumpen elements in the past rarely understood the society which victimized them and were not to be counted upon to take organized revolutionary steps within capitalist society. Indeed, the very term lumpen proletariat was originally intended to convey the inferiority of this sector as compared with the authentic working class.

Monday, September 6, 2010

On August 29th, 2010, Reporters Without Borders Washington DC representative, Clothilde Le Coz, visited Mumia Abu-Jamal, prisoner on death row for nearly three decades. Ms. Le Coz was accompanied by Abu-Jamal’s lead attorney, Robert R. Bryan, and his legal assistant, Nicole Bryan. The meeting took place in room 17 of the State Correctional Institution (SCI) in Waynesburg, Greene county, Pennsylvania.

Reporters Without Borders:

As a journalist who continues to work in prison, what are your latest reports focused on?

Mumia Abu-Jamal: The prison population in the United States is the highest in the world. Over the past year, for the first time in 38 years, the prison population declined.

Some states, like California or Michigan, are taking fewer prisoners because of overcrowding. State budgets are restrained and some prisoners are released because of the economic situation.

Prisons in America are vast and the number of prisoners is immense. It’s impressive to see how much money is spent by the US government and how invisible we are. No one knows. Most people don’t care. Some journalists report when there is a drama in prison and think they know about it. But this is not real : it is sensationalist. You can find some good writings. But they are unrealistic. My reporting is what I have seen with my eyes and what people told me. It is real. My reporting has to do with my reality. They mostly have been focusing on death row and prison. I wish it were not so. There is a spate of suicides on death row in the last year and a half. But this is invisible. I broke stories about suicide because it happened on my block.

I need to write. There are millions of stories and some wonderful people here. Among these stories, the ones I chose to write are important, moving, fragile. I decide to write them but part of the calculation is to know whether it’s helpful or not. I have to think about that. As a reporter, you have a responsability when you publish those kind of stories. Hopefully, it will change their lives for the better.

Do you think the fact you were a reporter affected your case ?

Being the "Voice of the Voiceless" played a significant role. And this expression actually comes from the title of a Philadephia Inquirer headline after I was arrested in 1981. As a teenager, I was a radical journalist working on the staff of the Black Panthers national newspaper. The FBI was actually monitoring my writings since I was 14. My first job was being a reporter. Because of my writings, I am far better known that any inmate in America. If it were not the case, I think there would have been less pressure for the Court to create a special law to affect my conviction. Most of the men and women on death row are not well known. Because I continue to write, this is an element that would have affected the thinking of the judges and made them change the ruling for not giving me a new trial. I think they were thinking “You’re a big mouth, you won’t get a new trial”. You expect a little more from a federal Court. Because of my case, a dozen of other cases can be affected.

What do you think of the media coverage of your case ?

Once, I read that I was no longer on death row. I was sitting here when I read it. I haven’t stopped sitting here for one second.

Because I was coming from the craft, a lot of reporters did not want to cover my case because they feared they would be attached. They had to face criticisms for being partial and sometimes they were told by their editors they could not cover it. Since the beginning of the case, people who could cover me best were not allowed to. Most of reporters I worked with are no longer working. They retired and nobody took the work over.

But the press should have a role to play here. Millions of people saw what was done in Abu Ghraib. Its leader, smiling on the pictures that have been published, worked here before going to Abu Ghraib. In death row, you have people without a high school degree who can decide whether someone lives or dies. For whatever reason, they have the power to make you not eat if they don’t want to. And none of that power is checked by anyone. There are informal rules. These people can make someone’s life a living hell on a wink. When I chose which stories I want to write about, I am never short on material. From a writing perspective, this field is rich.

No matter what my detractors are saying about me, I am a reporter. This country would be a whole lot worse without journalists. But to many of them, I am an outlaw reporter. Prior to prison, in my work for various radio stations, I met people from all around the world and despite my conflicts with some editors, I had the greatest job.

The support you receive in Europe compared to the support you receive here in the United States, is very different. How do you explain the difference and do you still believe international mobilization will be helpful ?

Of course it will. The European mobilization might be pressuring the US regarding the death penalty. Foreign countries, like European ones, went through a specific history of repression. There was an in-their-bones-knowledge of what it is to be in prison. They know about prison, death row and concentration camps. In the US, very few people had that experience. That speaks to how cultures look at things in the world. In Europe, the very ideal of death penalty is an anathema.

9/11 changed a lot of things in the US. People challenging or opposing the government would not be supported anymore. The press also changed. Things that were “allowable” became unacceptable after 9/11. I think 9/11 changed the way people thought and it changed the tolerance of the media. For example, even though 9/11 happened in Manhattan and Washington DC, the jail was closed for an entire day, here in Pennsylvania, and we were locked down.

To motivate more people around your cause, it might be helpful to get an up to date picture of you, today, on death row. Does the fact that we don’t have any updated picture of you affect your situation and the ability of more people to mobilize around your cause ?

Having a public image is partly helpful. The essence of an image is propaganda. Pictures are therefore not that important. The human image is the true one. There, I try to do my best. In 1986, prison authorities took recorders from reporters and you were only allowed a pen and a paper. Now that there is only the meaning of one article left, one can make monsters and models from his article.

The masses have boundless creative power. They can organize themselves and concentrate on places and branches of work where they can give full play to their energy; they can concentrate on production in breadth and depth and create more and more undertakings for their own well-being.

Introductory note to "Surplus Labour Has Found a Way Out" (1955), The Socialist Upsurge in China's Countryside, Chinese ed., Vol. II

The present upsurge of the peasant movement is a colossal event. In a very short time, in China's central, southern and northern provinces, several hundred million peasants will rise like a mighty storm, like a hurricane, a force so swift and violent that no power, however great, will be able to hold it back. They will smash all the trammels that bind them and rush forward along the road to liberation. They will sweep all the imperialists, warlords, corrupt officials, local tyrants and evil gentry into their graves. Every revolutionary party and every revolutionary comrade will be put to the test, to be accepted or rejected as they decide. There are three alternatives. To march at their head and lead them? To trail behind them, gesticulating and criticizing? Or to stand in their way and oppose them? Every Chinese is free to choose, but events will force you to make the choice quickly.

The high tide of social transformation in the countryside, the high tide of co-operation, has already reached some places and will soon sweep over the whole country. It is a vast socialist revolutionary movement involving a rural population of more than 500 million, and it has extremely great and world-wide significance. We should give this movement active, enthusiastic and systematic leadership, and not drag it back by one means or another. Some errors are unavoidable in the process; this is understandable, and they will not be hard to correct. Shortcomings or mistakes among cadres and peasants can be remedied or overcome provided we give them positive help.

This article has been submitted by Harsh Thakor. The author, it must be mentioned has written this work on his own initiative and not been asked by any individual or group. He is no member, or supporter of any organization discussed, but historian.The opinions expressed in this article are not those of Democracy and Class Struggle but we publish this article to further debate issues in the Indian Revolution.The view of Democracy and Class Struggle of the Struggle in India is contained in Seven Questions on the Struggle in India.

One of the most important theoretical issues in the Communist Movement is the issue of the mass Line. The most authentic practice of revolutionary mass line took place in the 1946-1951 Telengana Armed Struggle. There after armed mass peasant movements took place like In Srikakulam or Naxalbari but all of them fell victim to left deviation. The principal precursor of this was the left adventurist line of Charu Mazumdar,who called for disbanding mass organizations and called for annihilation of class enemies. Trade Unions and mass struggles had no place in his programme..

The most important historical question is whether conditions ever existed historically for armed struggle since the days of the Naxalbari movement . and if it is correct to defer armed Struggle In this debate the revolutionary camp remained divided. From the late 1970’s Organizations upholding armed struggle(now constituents of the C.P.I-Maoist) like the Andhra Pradesh State Committee, the Maoist Communist Centre and the Unity Organisation in Bihar made rectification in their line and upheld the formation of revolutionary mass organizations and movements. In fact there was a thaw in the post-emergency period in Andhra Pradesh,when armed actions were stopped to concentrate on building mass agitations, particularly of the peasantry. However these sections persisted with the line of ‘annihilation of class enemies’ and although significant peasant movements were built up Mass organizations were not given their independent identity, and often armed squads replaced the mass movements.Today, although leading a huge mass Movement the line of the C.P.I(Maoist)is vitiated by these trends.

In the author’s view today there is no trend completely upholding the revolutionary mass line. Within the camp that defers armed struggle there are strong revisionist, semi-revisionist or right deviationist tendencies. Although they take progressive stands on several issues they are hardly effective in upholding revolutionary mass resistance. The best example of these are groups that originally belonged to the various sections of the U.C.C.R.I, the Janashakti groups, the Red Flag Group, and the organization led by Com Kanu Sanyal. In the present polarisation of revolutionary groups in this camp the chief representatives are the C.P.I.(M.L.)Liberation,C.P.I(M.L.)led by K.N.Ramchandran and the C.P.I(M.L)New Democracy groups.One feature of these groups is that they have All-India Trade Union Centers or platforms uniting peasant organisations. However their style of functioning is not coherent with that of building revolutionary mass resistance, and display reformist tendencies. True the New Democracy Group still leads mass agitations, particularly in Punjab.Andhra Pradesh and Uttar Pradesh, but powerful rightist tendencies are reflected. One of the most capitulationist tendencies within the revolutionary camp was the line of participation in parliamentary elections. This line led to some groups openly capitulating to revisionism like the C.P.I(M.L.) Liberation Group.

Quoting Com.Scott Harrison “From what I’ve read, the dominant concept of the mass line in the overall revolutionary movement in India is mostly incorrect: For groups other than the CPI(Maoist) it means something like “organizing the masses in their own (mostly) legal struggles as opposed to illegal revolutionary mass action and armed struggle.” That’s clearly a deeply rightist conception.”

Today groups like the C.P.I (M.L.) led by K.N.Ramchandran (earlier known as Red Flag Group)have virtually become revisionist ,abandoning the path of revolutionary resistance and resorting to total open functioning. They go out of the way to condemn the military actions of the C.P.I-(Maoist) and assert that India is a neo-colony.The major contribution of the C.P.I(M.L.) Red Flag Group in it’s earlier phase(1988-1992) was to launch a struggle against sectarianism and for the unity of the Party. It also launched a major struggle defending the concept of the dictatorship of the Proletariat as against the line of upholding nationality line as the principle one. Earlier a line was advocated within the organization upholding the struggle for nationalities as the principal contradiction by K.Venu..A unity platform was launched for all sections of Communist revolutionaries within the camp, which was significant since there was so much disunity within the movement. Several seminars and rallies were held on defending the achievements of Socialism in U.S.S.R and China, after the toppling of the erstwhile U.S.SR. and the East European regimes. All-India efforts were initiated against Communalism and State repression . Great Emphasis was paced on launching mass struggles and the need for mass movements to substantiate armed struggle. Great efforts were made to defend important aspects of Leninist polemics through open theoretical journals brought out regularly. However where this organization erred was the analysis of taking Imperialism as the principal contradiction and also resorting to open party functioning. . One historical Contribution of Red Flag Group was that they defended Mao Tse Tung Thought against using the term Maoism.and tooth and nail refuted the Dengist theory of 3 Worlds upheld by the majority section of the revolutionary camp. What was significant was the All-India perspective the organization implemented. However later they capitulated to right deviation by participating in election and resorting to open functioning..A major aspect that went against them was their assesment that Lin Biaoism existed in the C.P.C in the late 1960’s and that that trend caused left adventurism. It virtually accused the Chinese Communist Party of exhibiting revisionism. The second factor was their rejecting the semi colonial ,semi feudal structure, Characterizing India as a neo-conly-thus a state with bargaining rights.

The C.P.I(ML.)New Democracy, although adhering to many of the formulations of the mass line, have displayed several rightist-deviationist tendencies by embracing the path of participation in elections .It is significant that at one time the same organisation,then known as the Chandra Pulla Reddy Group, was the strongest group in India, which asserted secret party functioning. True later they built mass organizations and struggles and expanded to the urban areas but have sowed the seeds for capitulationism by almost resorting to total open functioning.

Kathmandu: Nepal's Parliament failed to elect a Prime Minister for the sixth time on Sunday. Both candidates — Maoist chairman Pushpa Kamal Dahal ‘Prachanda' and Nepali Congress leader Ram Chandra Poudel — were unable to obtain a simple majority in the house of 601.

Mr. Prachanda got 240 votes in his favour. 101 MPs voted against the Maoist candidate, and 163 remained neutral. 504 MPs registered their presence during the vote.

Mr. Poudel got 122 in his favour while 242 opposed his candidature and 172 stayed neutral. 536 lawmakers attended the proceedings during the vote for Mr. Poudel.

The Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine said on August 31, 2010 that it was considering freezing its membership in the Executive Committee of the Palestine Liberation Organization in protest of Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas' actions in entering into direct negotiations with the occupation state. Comrade Jamil Mizher, member of the Central Committee of the PFLP, said that "The Front's leadership in Palestine and abroad is engaged in consultations and discussions, including with the Front's imprisoned General Secretary, Comrade Ahmad Sa'adat, to discuss freezing our participation in the Executive Committee."

Comrade Mizher said that there is an immense public backlash and a need for action in response to the direct negotiations, saying that Abbas' actions are deeply harmful to the Palestinian cause. He emphasized that under the PLO's own rules, the vote of the Executive Committee to return to negotiations was illegitimate and invalid, and that the meeting which took such a vote did not even include a quorum of members, saying the body had become a "Rubber stamp."

Comrade Marwan Fahoum, known as Abu Sami, member of the Political Bureau of the PFLP, said on September 2 that the Front remains options to all possibilities in the future regarding its relationship with the PLO, saying that the decision to go to these negotiations stands in direct contradiction to the national consensus expressed by Palestinian factions and independent civil society, and lacks any legitimacy.

He described the negotiations as nothing more than a new trick meant to lure the Palestinians to compromise fundamental rights and cover up the crimes of the occupation, as well as serving U.S. interests to maintain complete regional hegemony. He emphasized that the Quartet's statement on the negotiations offers
nothing but legitimacy to the occupation and the siege, saying that this poses a serious threat to Palestinian rights to return and self-determination and a waiver of international resolutions on Palestinian rights.

Comrade Abu Sami raised that the U.S./Israeli military threats against Iran,Lebanon and Syria must be recognized as relevant to the negotiations, saying that such negotiations set the stage for official Palestinian acquiescence and/or silence in the face of a war of aggression. He emphasized that it is critical to activate and support the resistance in all forms - including armed resistance - against Israeli occupation - and called for a broad Palestinian national front to mobilize against the negotiations, build the resistance and call for international solidarity and support for our cause.

Saturday, September 4, 2010

Chief of foreign relations department of the Unified CPN (Maoist) Krishna Bahadur Mahara Saturday said recent audio tape (which is yet to be verified independently) of a telephone conversation with a Chinese man in which he asks for Rs 500 million to 'buy' lawmakers to vote for Maoist chairman Pushpa Kamal Dahal was a conspiracy tool against the party's political image.

In an exclusive interview with Rajendra Pokharel of Nepalnews, Mahara said the audio scandal is nothing new for the party. He vehemently denied any conversation with the Chinese man in question.

"There had been many such allegations and propaganda against our party in the past," Mahara said, "When somebody cannot react politically against a civilian party, he resorts to conspiracy."

India: Investigate police crackdown on workers at Vedanta’s refinery site

Indian authorities should order an independent and impartial investigation into the police crackdown on retrenched contract workers at the Vedanta Aluminium refinery at Lanjigarh in which at least 25 contract workers were injured and several others detained by police.

The crackdown on the night of 31 August followed protests against the retrenchment of more than 3,500 contract workers. Those retrenched worked for engineering and construction firms that were working on expansion of the refinery.

The retrenchments came in the wake of a decision by India’s Ministry of Environment and Forests to suspend refinery expansion and reject plans to bauxite at nearby Niyamgiri Hills. The Ministry had termed the expansion work already carried out as illegal.

Hundreds of retrenched workers began protesting on the evening of 31 August after failure of talks to agree on payment of compensation and outstanding allowances